Aristophanes' BIRDS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

96 pages - You are on Page 77

CINESIAS. ... as I soar over the seas, carried by the breath of the winds ...

PISTHETAERUS. By Zeus! but I'll cut your breath short.

CINESIAS. ... now rushing along the tracks of Notus, now nearing Boreas across the infinite wastes of the ether." (Pisthetaerus beats him.) Ah! old man, that's a pretty and clever idea truly!

PISTHETAERUS. What! are you not delighted to be cleaving the air?[334]

CINESIAS. To treat a dithyrambic poet, for whom the tribes dispute with each other, in this style![335]

PISTHETAERUS. Will you stay with us and form a chorus of winged birds as slender as Leotrophides[336] for the Cecropid tribe?

CINESIAS. You are making game of me, 'tis clear; but know that I shall never leave you in peace if I do not have wings wherewith to traverse the air.

AN INFORMER. What are these birds with downy feathers, who look so pitiable to me? Tell me, oh swallow with the long dappled wings.[337]

[334] Cinesias makes a bound each time that Pisthetaerus struck him.

[335] The tribes of Athens, or rather the rich citizens belonging to them, were wont on feast-days to give representations of dithyrambic choruses as well as of tragedies and comedies.

[336] Another dithyrambic poet, a man of extreme leanness.

[337] A parody of a hemistich from 'Alcaeus.'--The informer is dissatisfied at only seeing birds of sombre plumage and poor appearance. He would have preferred to denounce the rich.

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